7 Answers
7

The only technique I can recommend with certainty is experimentation! There are no hard and fast rules.

Bulb mode is useful if you want to go past your camera's maximum exposure time, typically 30 seconds. If you don't have any foreground light sources, i.e. you're pointing at the sky, or the foreground is unlit, then you can pretty much expose as long as you like as without worrying about overexposure as the fireworks stop giving off light right after they go off. A longer exposure allows you to capture more bursts in an image. If you want to do long exposures with foreground lights then you might need to use a graduated ND filter upside down.

Covering the camera with a t-shirt or cloth is used to prevent stray light entering the camera through the viewfinder. It's only applicable for SLRs/DSLRs. I find a bit of black electrical tape is more convenient.

How does the long exposure relate to noise? Assuming you set your ISO high, will a 1 minute exposure produce the same amount of noise as a 10 second one or are these parameters unrelated?
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JulianJul 3 '12 at 18:10

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@Julian Noise is related to the amount of light available, a long exposure ought to give you more light, and hence a better signal to noise ratio. However camera sensors also pick up infra-red radiation and in low light you can get a build up of noise due to other sources, thus making shorted exposures preferable. For this reason astrophotographers sometimes modify their cameras to add cooling to the sensor. The best approach is multiple short exposures that you blend together in post, and/or shooting a black frame to help eliminate thermal noise.
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Matt GrumJul 4 '12 at 9:29

Use a tripod - Good fireworks photos require long exposures, and the best way to get them is to use a sturdy tripod.

Find a great location early - Once the show gets going, you’re not going to have the time (and if you’re in a crowd, the ability) to move around much.

Turn your flash off - Whether it’s an on-camera flash or an add-on, it’s not nearly powerful enough to reach the fireworks. Even if it was, you wouldn’t want to light them that way. Go flash-less.

ISO 100 - Your digital camera has several user-selectable light-sensitivity settings. The higher your ISO, the more sensitive your camera is to light. Normally this means you want to use a higher ISO in dark settings, but when you’re shooting longer exposures (long shutter speeds) high ISO can introduce a lot of digital noise to your photograph. An ISO setting of 100 is a good bet.

Turn on noise reduction - If your camera has it, this setting will help get rid of any digital noise created by your long exposures, even with a low ISO. Note: some cameras will take several seconds to eliminate noise after a shot is taken, preventing you from taking another photograph immediately.

Use the self-timer to reduce vibration - Even with your camera on a tripod, you cause small vibrations just by clicking the shutter, resulting in a less-than-perfectly sharp capture. Set your self-timer to the shortest duration possible and use it to give the your camera a chance to settle before the shot’s actually taken. Sharper shots, guaranteed.

Use your camera’s fireworks setting - Many recent cameras have a scene mode specifically for fireworks. Try some photos with and without it and see what you prefer.

Focus on infinity - shooting in full manual mode if you have the ability. Set your focus to just less than infinity (or choose a landscape setting if you can’t manually adjust focus) and use an aperture of f/8 to f/16.

Use long shutter speeds: 2/3 seconds or longer - This is the most important camera setting you’ll need to worry about. At any given moment, fireworks are just a bunch of bright points of light. What makes them interesting is how their quick motion across the night sky illuminates a path and creates beautiful streaks and patterns. Your eye sees it, but with a fast shutter speed, your camera doesn't. So to give your camera a chance to record those streaks and patterns, you need to make sure your shutter is open long enough to get them in. That means at minimum a full second, and possibly up to 15 seconds or more. You’ll want to experiment with different durations to see what works best.

I have found with experience that manually focusing is the best way to ensure that you get the fireworks in focus. If you have the time try focusing manually on the firework display at the begining once it starts. (i.e the first 1-2 explosions)

One thing that I found helpded produce better images was shooting in portrait mode to get the path of the firework as it reaches in to the sky. I have also held open the shutter at the end of the display to gte colour in to the sky (around 15-20 seconds longer depending on how dark it is).

Being after the 4th I realize this answer might be coming little late, but after finishing my first time photographing fireworks I thought putting an answer in here would help.

Tripod & Support.

Good support means clear images. Granted I was standing on a beach, so keeping the amount of movement around the tripod while the camera was exposing to a minimum was important as well. I use a TVC-33 and BH-55, both from the excellent folks at Really Right Stuff.

Exposing

I used a wide angle lens (24mm) manually focused to infinity with a small aperture (f/11 on most, but changed it up in for a few). I had a remote that I dialed in a set exposure time into and then just anticipated shell bursts in the sky.

Messing around

I liked the idea of getting a bunch of fireworks all in one shot, why not go for a 10+ second exposure? In short it gave too much “stuff” in the picture. You get smoke showing up from previous fireworks, overexposed portions because some other flash gun style fireworks are going off during the exposure, and generally it didn't feel as clean as I wanted it to be. I ended up using a lower (1-3 second) exposure time and then doing some adjustments in Lightroom to push the background even darker and expand some of the tones in the fireworks.

Unique Techniques

Just play with it. Assuming you have more then 15 seconds to take pictures there is plenty of time to play with adding other variables like an ND filter for even longer bulb exposures. One thing I didn't try that I wanted to was using a longer focal length lens and trying to put the focus directly on the center of the shell. Unfortunately that was more trial and error then I wanted to do my first time shooting.

General rules for eliminating vibrations apply here: get a remote trigger for your shutter, use a sturdy tripod, and (if you're really paranoid) shoot in mirror up mode to minimize mirror slap/shutter shake. Self timer can be used but is difficult to time correctly. I've used a wireless remote trigger with bulb exposures and it works great - on mine you hold it down for about 5 sec to start the bulb, and press it again to stop.

If you want a shot that mixes fireworks and stuff on the ground, you may find it easier to shoot them separately and merge them. One common trick is to shoot fireworks over water to get reflections. I also wouldn't rule out creative merging of multiple fireworks shots into a single composition.